Of Animal Germs and Pachyderms
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/of-animal-germs-and-pachyderms/
I am just back from co-organizing a major meeting in Maun, Botswana, the tourism hub of the Ngamiland district of northern Botswana. Ngamiland’s past and future are inextricably linked to the region’s extraordinary wildlife, along with wonders of the world such as the Okavango Delta, the largest inland freshwater delta on the planet, whose waters start their 1,000-mile journey in the highlands of Angola and eventually vanish into the sands of the Kalahari Desert. At this forum, we talked about cows. A lot. There are perhaps 300,000 of them in Ngamiland.
Cattle farming has long been the lifeblood of Ngamiland, both culturally and economically, but in the past several decades an animal disease, foot and mouth disease (FMD), has made the trading of beef increasingly difficult for rural livestock farmers. This disease of cloven-hoofed animals is arguably the most economically damaging animal disease in the world, with global impacts estimated to potentially exceed US$22.5 billion annually.